How Not To Suck

[Phong Bui’s Obama, lithograph, 2010]

Ditched by Seven Stories Press, I still receive its emails. This morning, I discovered one of its new releases, Ten Thousand Dresses by Marcus Ewert:

Every night, Bailey dreams about magical dresses: dresses made of crystals and rainbows, dresses made of flowers, dresses made of windows. . . . Unfortunately, when Bailey’s awake, no one wants to hear about these beautiful dreams. Quite the contrary. “You’re a BOY!” Mother and Father tell Bailey. “You shouldn’t be thinking about dresses at all.” Then Bailey meets Laurel, an older girl who is touched and inspired by Bailey's imagination and courage. In friendship, the two of them begin making dresses together. And Bailey’s dreams come true!

This gorgeous picture book—a modern fairy tale about becoming the person you feel you are inside—will delight people of all ages.

At 52-years-old, Ewert has published just two books, both for kids. As the lover of Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, Ewert is already immortal. At 17, Ewert was deflowered by the 63-year-old bard:

Basically he blew me; that was a big part of it. And he was really good at it. He did this thing where he had his hand and his mouth working at the same time, and he'd take time out to explain to me what he was doing. He was like, ‘See, you do this with your hand so that way your partner’s penis is always being touched, and when your mouth is off it, your hand is there and it keeps it warm and it keeps the sensation constant, and that shows real consideration to your partner.’ It’s very Allen that he’s always peppering anything he’s saying with little tutorials. But I was totally down for that—it was what I’d signed up for. I wanted the tutorial, I wanted to understand how the fucking world worked. I wanted somebody to help me and mentor me.

For eight years, Burroughs also mentored Ewert. Where would he be without all this mentoring? These Beat geniuses drilled so much wisdom into this tender bud from Georgia.